How much is a dental practice worth?

Half of the dental practices sold on BizBuySell from 2021 to 2025 went for 1.60 to 3.37 times seller's discretionary earnings (SDE), and the median was 2.48 times. SDE counts your own pay as the owner-dentist, clinical pay included, as practice earnings.

Last updated October 14, 2026

What multiple does a dental practice sell for?

Three yardsticks get quoted for dental practices, each on a different base. BizBuySell's figures are multiples of SDE, so they cannot be compared with the EBITDA multiples advisors quote for DSO and private equity deals.

Three yardsticks for dental practice value

SDE and revenue: middle half of BizBuySell sales, 2021 to 2025. Collections: one CPA's valuations, no sample given. EBITDA: one advisor's DSO and practice-size ranges, for educational purposes only.
Sale or data set	Measure	Range	Source
Dental practices sold	SDE	1.60x to 3.37xSDE2.48x median	BizBuySell
Same sales, on revenue	Revenue	0.51x to 0.86xRevenue0.70x median	BizBuySell
Doctor-to-doctor valuations	Collections	64% to 96%Collections	Ratcliff, CPA
General practice joining a DSO	EBITDA	5x to 8xEBITDA	FOCUS
DSO platform acquisition	EBITDA	9x to 11xEBITDA	FOCUS
Single site, under $1M adj. EBITDA	EBITDA	5x to 7xEBITDA	FOCUS

We verified no sale data for any dental specialty on its own, so orthodontic, oral surgery, pediatric, endodontic and periodontic practices fall back on the all-practice SDE range here and in the estimator. What does differ by specialty is covered in selling a specialty dental practice.

What do dental practices actually sell for?

BizBuySell's dental data puts the median sale price at $350,000 for practices sold from 2021 to 2025, and at $500,000 for the 22 sales reported for 2025.

Dental practices sold on BizBuySell

BizBuySell dental benchmarks (sales 2021 to 2025; revenue from its five-year median row) and full-year 2025 data tables, accessed October 2026.
Measure	2021 to 2025	2025 (22 sales)
Median sale price	$350,000	$500,000
Median revenue	$557,518	$986,385
Median SDE	$149,838	$240,000
Price to SDE	1.60x to 3.37x2.48x median	3.28x average
Median days on market	215	199

Read the 2025 column with care. Each year of BizBuySell's dental data rests on only 12 to 23 reported sales, so yearly figures swing: the median sale price ran from $245,000 in 2022 to $500,000 in 2025, and the average SDE multiple from 2.17 times in 2024 to 3.28 times in 2025. BizBuySell says larger practices sold in 2025, many to private equity firms.

Asking prices run higher than sale prices. Sold practices went for a median of $350,000 against a median asking price of $400,000, and the average sale-to-ask ratio in BizBuySell's highlights box is 0.86.

On October 14, 2026, 61 dental practice listings on BizBuySell gave an asking price, revenue and SDE. Their median asking price was $725,000, and they asked 2.00 to 4.13 times SDE between the quartiles, median 2.66. Those are asking prices, not sale prices.

In BizBuySell's comparison with other health care businesses, dental practices sold for an average 2.63 times SDE from 2021 to 2025, against 2.37 times for medical practices, even though the medical practices had higher median revenue and earnings.

How are dental practices valued: SDE, collections or EBITDA?

SDE multiples

BizBuySell, whose SDE multiples fill the first table, notes that new owners of dental practices are “often limited to qualified dentists.” That is its general description of the market, not a legal rule; the state rules are in who can own a dental practice.

Percent of collections

Ken Rubin, a dental CPA and broker, wrote in Dental Economics in 2016 that the best-known rule of thumb applies about 70% to 85% to the prior year's collections, and that it is only an extremely rough starting point. The ADA's practice valuation guide (2013) says a rule of thumb should never be used to make the final determination of a practice's value.

Henry Schein Dental Practice Transitions, a practice broker, showed why in a 2021 post with a hypothetical: two practices each collect $1,000,000, one with 50% overhead and one with 70%. An “80% of gross revenue” rule values both at $800,000, but the first is significantly more valuable because of its larger profit, $500,000 left after overhead against $300,000.

A May 2026 Cain Watters post by valuation CPA Christy Ratcliff puts practice values from actual valuations at roughly 64% to 96% of collections, and says profitability, not collections alone, drives the gap. That is one advisor's experience with no sample disclosed, not a market average.

Rubin's and Ratcliff's percentages apply to collections, not production. ADA guidance for buyers measures the collection rate against adjusted production, meaning production after third-party discounts.

EBITDA multiples

EBITDA is the base for DSO and private equity deals as advisors quote them. FOCUS Investment Banking, a sell-side advisor, puts general dentistry practices joining an existing DSO as add-ons at about 5 to 8 times EBITDA, and DSO platform acquisitions at about 9 to 11 times.

In a separate table by size, not specific to general dentistry, FOCUS puts single-site, owner-dependent practices with under $1 million of adjusted EBITDA at about 5 to 7 times, with individuals and small DSO tuck-ins as the listed buyers. It labels both tables for educational purposes only.

Never convert an EBITDA multiple into a percent of collections or compare it directly with an SDE multiple; compare a DSO's offer with a dentist buyer's in dollars. More in selling a dental practice to a DSO.

What makes one dental practice worth more than another?

No source we verified measures how much hygiene, payer mix, your share of the dentistry, equipment age or active patient counts move the price, so be wary of a percentage attached to any of them.

Profit and overhead

The ADA's valuation guide (2013) says buyers generally won't pay much for a practice with an extremely high overhead rate, especially if there is little the buyer can do to reduce it. In a 2015 Dental Economics roundtable, Tom Snyder of Henry Schein said overhead typically above 70% usually hurts value.

How much of the dentistry you produce

FOCUS, in its 2026 guide, says DSO and private equity buyers look for production spread across several providers, and that heavy reliance on a single doctor creates concentration risk and can result in valuation discounts. Ratcliff's post says the same for sales between dentists: reliance on a single provider can increase risk and lower value.

If an outside buyer finances the whole practice with an SBA 7(a) loan, SOP 50 10 8.1 (effective October 1, 2026) bars you from staying on as an owner, officer or employee; you may consult for up to 24 months. An associate's buyout can fall under a different category, and the SOP is silent on whether a consultant can treat patients; ask the lender and your counsel.

Hygiene and recall

FOCUS says DSO and private equity buyers treat hygiene revenue as the most recurring and stable part of a practice's earnings, and look at recall adherence and hygiene-to-doctor production. Snyder, in the same 2015 roundtable, called recare at 25% to 30% of total production evidence of good patient retention.

Payer mix

FOCUS says a balanced commercial and PPO mix is valued most highly, and that Medicaid exposure and cash-pay concentration are both scrutinized in due diligence.

One national practice transitions firm reports that, in its experience, a change in ownership by full or partial sale has triggered Delta Dental to move a practice's providers from Premier to PPO, at the lower fee schedule. That is one firm's experience, not Delta policy, so count your Premier patients and ask your Delta company how a sale would be handled.

For orthodontic practices, consultants Ken and Ryan Alexander write that more than 30% of patients in HMO and Medicaid plans should generally affect value.

Active and new patients

John Cahill, a practice appraiser and broker, wrote in the 2015 roundtable that active patients and new patients per month are important in setting a practice's value. Definitions of “active” vary (Cahill: seen in the last 18 to 24 months; ADA policy: any dental services in the past 24 months), so give the look-back period with any count you hand a buyer.

Location and the lease

Rubin wrote that a good office lease is critical, and that a practice's value can be decimated without an adequately transferable lease. Snyder called geographic location the most critical factor. ADA guidance for buyers includes lease length among the questions to ask the seller.

Equipment and technology

All else being equal, a practice with state-of-the-art equipment is worth more than one with 20-year-old, out-of-date equipment, in Henry Schein's example. FOCUS lists digital radiography and intraoral scanning among the quality factors DSO and private equity buyers look at.

Collections and receivables

ADA guidance tells buyers to flag receivables greater than two months of production, receivables in collections, or a high balance more than 90 days past due, because they can point to loose collection policies or ineffective billing. Clean these up before a buyer reads your aging report.

Size

BizBuySell says a dental practice consistently generating sales over $800,000 a year may sell for around 3.4 times SDE or higher, and one with sales below $300,000 closer to 1.6 or less, largely because of how buyers finance a purchase. Those figures match the edges of its own sold range, so read them as an illustration, not a separate result by practice size.

The dental practice due diligence checklist lists what buyers ask to see on all of these points.

Are equipment, receivables and the building included in the price?

In an asset sale covered by section 1060, you and the buying dentist or DSO split the practice's price across the asset classes in the IRS instructions for Form 8594 (Rev. November 2021), and goodwill takes whatever is left. The split changes your tax bill, so read how a dental practice sale is taxed and ask your CPA before you sign.

Equipment

The IRS instructions put equipment generally in Class V. If you have depreciated it, gain on the sale is treated as ordinary income up to the depreciation allowed or allowable, including section 179 and bonus depreciation, and never more than the gain itself, under IRS Publication 544 (2025).

That recapture is reported in full in the year of sale even if the buyer pays you over time, under IRS Publication 537 (2025). In our reading, that means you can owe tax on equipment recapture for the year of closing before a seller note pays out.

If your amalgam separator was installed before June 14, 2017, EPA's November 2017 FAQ on its dental office rule (40 CFR 441.30) says a new owner may keep using it only until June 14, 2027, and only while it works properly and does not need replacing.

When the legal entity that holds your X-ray registrations changes, Texas, California and Florida each have the new owner register the machines, and the seller files too. Confirm the steps with your state's radiation control office.

Supplies

Inventory is Class IV. Inventory sales cannot be reported on the installment method, and whether the supplies on your shelves count as inventory is a question for your CPA.

Accounts receivable

Accounts receivable are Class III. On the Notice of Sale of Practice form used by Delta Dental of California and its affiliates, the seller acknowledges that payments for services dated on or before the sale date are issued in the seller's name; an Assignment of Payments section covers a buyer who purchases the receivables. Other Delta companies and other carriers have their own procedures.

In orthodontics the receivable can be large: consultants Ken and Ryan Alexander estimate that the contracts receivable balance averages about 55% of yearly collections, and say even major appraisers disagree on how much should be left for the buyer to collect before a practice's value is reduced.

Goodwill

Goodwill is Class VII, whatever is left after every other class. CBIZ (2024), citing the Health Care Group Goodwill Registry, reports average goodwill of about 52% of annual gross revenue in general dentistry sales, against about 50% in orthodontics, 44% in oral surgery, 41% in prosthodontics and 39% in periodontics. That is goodwill alone, not the total price.

Whether goodwill belongs to you or to your professional corporation can depend on whether you have an employment agreement or non-compete with that corporation. In Howard v. United States, No. CV-08-365-RMP (E.D. Wash. July 30, 2010), a dentist had an employment agreement and non-compete with his own professional corporation.

He and his wife reported $320,358 of long-term capital gain from selling goodwill. The IRS treated the goodwill as a corporate asset and the $320,358 as a dividend, and the court granted summary judgment to the government. The Ninth Circuit affirmed in an unpublished, non-precedential memorandum (No. 10-35768, 2011). The case turns on its own facts.

Real estate

If you own your building and the buyer uses an SBA 7(a) loan, SOP 50 10 8.1 leaves the building out of the practice's valuation and purchase price and has it appraised separately. The practice loan may not amortize over more than 10 years; if the building is bought in the same deal on a blended term, only its portion may run longer, up to 25 years.

These are summaries of IRS, SBA, EPA and state rules as dated above, for general information only. Confirm how they apply to your practice sale with your CPA and counsel.

A worked example

Take an illustrative practice with BizBuySell's five-year median figures for dental practices sold from 2021 to 2025: $149,838 of SDE on $557,518 of revenue. Apply the middle-half multiples from the first table to each.

Worked example at BizBuySell medians

BizBuySell medians and middle-half multiples, sales 2021 to 2025. Arithmetic, not a valuation.
Yardstick	Arithmetic	Result
SDE, low end	$149,838 × 1.60	$239,741
SDE, median	$149,838 × 2.48	$371,598
SDE, high end	$149,838 × 3.37	$504,954
Revenue, low end	$557,518 × 0.51	$284,334
Revenue, high end	$557,518 × 0.86	$479,465

How the revenue rows compare with the SDE rows for a real practice depends on its overhead, so neither result stands in for the other.

Where a real practice lands depends on the drivers above:

If you produce most of the dentistry yourself, hygiene days go unfilled, overhead is high and the lease cannot pass to a buyer, the drivers point toward the lower end.
If associates share the production, the hygiene schedule is full, overhead is lower and the lease can pass to the buyer, the case for the upper end is stronger.

Can a buyer pay that price?

The ADA's valuation guide (2013) describes the test a typical buyer applies: the practice's revenue has to cover all practice expenses, a reasonable salary for the buyer, and principal and interest on the debt used to buy it. An undated ADA career article adds the author's rule of thumb that a buyer should repay the acquisition loan within ten years.

If the buyer borrowed the whole price, about $372,000 spread over SBA's 10-year limit is about $37,000 a year in principal alone, before interest. Under SOP 50 10 8.1, SBA's minimum debt service coverage for an initial acquisition is 1.25 to 1, so the lender has to see at least $1.25 of cash flow for every $1 of loan payments.

If the agreed price is above the business valuation the lender relies on, the debt for the purchase is capped at that valuation, and the difference has to come from the buyer's equity, which can include a seller note on full standby. See selling to an associate or another dentist for how seller notes and SBA rules shape that kind of sale.

Under SBA Information Notice 5000-880695 (August 14, 2026), SOP 50 10 8.1 applies to 7(a) applications that receive an SBA loan number on or after October 1, 2026, and applications submitted through September 30, 2026 stay under SOP 50 10 8. This is a general summary of SBA's 7(a) rules, not advice; confirm it with the buyer's lender and your counsel.

How the estimator works

The valuation estimator applies the published ranges in the first table to the numbers you enter.

SDE, the default for every practice type. Your SDE times the SDE range in the first table, rounded to the nearest $5,000.
A collections cross-check. Your collections times the revenue range in the first table, shown beside the SDE result and never on its own.
EBITDA, only in two cases. If you enter EBITDA and the practice has 2 or more locations or little or none of your own chair time, it applies FOCUS's DSO add-on range from the first table, never the platform range. Specialty practices use SDE. The location cut-off is this site's own.
Specialty practices get the all-practice SDE range with a note that it is not specialty-specific; for orthodontics the note also covers contracts receivable.
Your chair time, hygiene and payer mix are flagged in words but do not move the number, because no source we verified measures their effect on price.
Size. If your collections are above $800,000 or below $300,000, the result repeats BizBuySell's size illustration in words without changing the range.

The result is a rough estimate, not an appraisal. It cannot see your lease, payer contracts, equipment, patient records or staff, and a buyer will. The ADA's valuation document checklist shows what a full valuation works from.

If your buyer uses an SBA 7(a) loan, SOP 50 10 8.1 has the lender order its own business valuation from an accredited, independent appraiser, not one prepared for you or the buyer. For a business purchase price of $350,000 or less, the lender may value the practice itself, unless the buyer and seller are closely related.

Sources

All sources accessed October 14, 2026.

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